31 Days to a Minimalist Lifestyle Day 14

I am writing every day in October--taking on the challenge set forth by The Nester for bloggers to write a "31 Days to..." blog series. I'm tackling Minimalist Living and you can click here to read Day 13's post.

I'm two weeks into my journey to reduce how much stuff we keep in our home and enjoy the benefits that come with less stuff-namely more free time, more space, less hollering at the kids (to pick up their stuff) and generally a "quieter" home.

Today I'm sharing a photo of some the things that were donated. The timing of my minimalist journey was perfect as my son's high school Band Department held a rummage sale yesterday. ALL of the stuff worth donating went there for someone else to enjoy and raise money to support music education. Win-win, I say.

In addition to the kitchen-sized garbage bag of plastic containers I donated, we also trimmed down our inventory of computers, home decor, odds-n-ends, this-n-that, etc. It filled the back of our mini-van!!! I have been working on downsizing our possessions for about 1 year. We took a van full of stuff to our church for their rummage sale this past summer, then I took another 2 or 3 vans full of stuff to sell at my neighbor's garage sale, and now this latest load. I still feel like we have too much stuff, even after having reduced everything so significantly.

I will continue to sort through our things and remove items we just don't love or just don't use. If it's a burden to us, I hope that by donating the items they will be a blessing to someone else.

Adopting a minimalist lifestyle is not an overnight event. It's a journey! Taking inventory of what we have and really just don't need is a long process. I hope that for my family, the efforts I make at minimizing what we own will help to teach my children that life is not stuff.

Life is people.

Day 1 email

Day 2 magazines

Day 3 kitchen tools 

Day 4 junk drawer

Day 5 bathroom counter

Day 6 first aid & medicines

Day 7 kitchen sink

Day 8 plastic containers

Day 10 spices

Day 11 mail

Day 12 linen closet part 1

Day 13 linen closet part 2

Day 14 donate!!!